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Ambush   Listen
verb
Ambush  v. t.  (past & past part. ambushed; pres. part. ambushing)  
1.
To station in ambush with a view to surprise an enemy. "By ambushed men behind their temple laid, We have the king of Mexico betrayed."
2.
To attack by ambush; to waylay.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Ambush" Quotes from Famous Books



... formally escorted her to her elevator, in a state of mind not quite so serenely happy as that of the night before. She had held her breath a good many times during the dinner, and even in the theater, where certain old memories and associations sprang at them both, as it were, from ambush. But always, at the breaking point, he managed to summon up unexpected reserves for resistance, intrenched himself in the manner of his ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster

... When this resistance had been overcome they were required to crush out a general system of guerrilla warfare conducted among a people speaking unknown tongues, from whom it was almost impossible to obtain the information necessary for successful pursuit or to guard against surprise and ambush. ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Supplemental Volume: Theodore Roosevelt, Supplement • Theodore Roosevelt

... forest, he said, when he perceived a rider approaching him. The horseman's countenance was plainly visible, and its lines were of a character too interesting to be readily forgotten. Suddenly three men sprang forth from an ambush among the thickets, and, seizing the stranger, hauled him from his horse and bore him away. To this succeeded another scene. He stood with a great multitude near by some foreign town. A bustle was heard, and he beheld the horseman of his earlier dream again led ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various

... settled himself for a long cold wait in his tree when, without a sound, the white wolf turned and trotted swiftly away into the forest, the whole pack following. The trapper stared after them, unable to believe his eyes. Fearing an ambush, he waited for some time; then as the wolves did not reappear, he lowered himself cautiously from the tree and set out once more for his cabin, minus his snowshoes and greatly perplexed at the mystery. Dave could not know that the keener nose of the white wolf had scented a deer ...
— Followers of the Trail • Zoe Meyer

... she least expected, with his disarming and ingenuous smile. Lucia felt that he had laid an ambush for her by his abstraction; the question and the smile shot, flashed, out of it with a directness that made ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair

... who would not be led into ambush, who had the strength to hold his fire under provocation, it was no easy matter to maintain a height of conscious, matter-of-fact rectitude and implied reproof. Austen's silence, Austen's attitude, declared louder than words the contempt for such manoeuvres of a ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... thrilled in Blanche's faded breast.— Murdoch of Alpine! prove thy speed, For ne'er had Alpine's son such need; With heart of fire, and foot of wind, The fierce avenger is behind! Fate judges of the rapid strife— The forfeit death—the prize is life; Thy kindred ambush lies before, Close couched upon the heathery moor; Them couldst thou reach!—it may not be Thine ambushed kin thou ne'er shalt see, The fiery Saxon gains on thee!— Resistless speeds the deadly thrust, ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... village of three Rivers we consult together that two should go the watter side, the other in a wood hardby to warne us, for to advertise us if he accidentaly should light [upon] or suspect any Barbars in ambush, we also retreat ourselves to him if we should discover any thing uppon the River. Having comed to the first river, which was a mile distant from our dwellings, wee mett a man who mett a man who kept ...
— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson

... the company to which Paul belonged saw a balloon coming towards them and a cloud of dust on the road far below showed them that a party of Uhlans were pursuing. At the time the balloon was rapidly descending. The company was ordered into ambush on each side of the road, while the Uhlans with upturned eyes and the occasional popping of a carbine at the balloon, dashed along the road unconscious of the hidden enemy. As they rode past the ambush, the order ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton

... drop my knife. My thought was of decoy and ambush, which was no credit to me, for this girl had been faithful before. But we train ourselves not to trust an Indian except ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith

... approached him with great reverence and addressed him through Nicholson, the interpreter. He had come, he said, a great distance to see him. On further discourse, the sachem made known that he was one of the warriors in the service of the French, who lay in ambush on the banks of the Monongahela, and wrought such havoc to Braddock's army. He declared that he and his young men had singled out Washington, as he made himself conspicuous riding about the field of battle with the General's orders, and fired ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various

... for the Indians, who came dashing up, lashing their ponies, which were panting and blowing. We let two of them pass by, but we opened a lively fire on the next three or four, killing two of them at the first crack. The others following discovered that they had run into an ambush, and whirling off into the brush, they turned and ran back in the direction whence they had come. The two who had passed by heard the firing and made their escape. We scalped the two that we had killed, and appropriated their arms and equipments; then, catching their ponies, we ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman

... defy convention and violently interfere to put an end to it. But he restrained himself and returned to the rectory, watching the two motionless figures beyond the churchyard wall from the parlour window as from an ambush, with an intensity of expectation that gave him the bodily sensation of ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens

... intention to fight their way across the mountains and join the Swedish forces on the frontier. Sinclair's party met with no resistance till they arrived at the pass of Kringelen, where three hundred peasants, hearing of their approach, had prepared an ambush. Every thing was arranged with the utmost secrecy. An abrupt mountain on the right, abounding in immense masses of loose rock, furnished the means of a terrible revenge for the ravages committed by the Scotch on their march from Romsdalen. The road winds around the foot of this mountain, ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne

... addressed more than their reason, therefore they are often out of the way, or rather led out of it and put astray by bad guides; well, t'other side have the prejudices of birth and education to dim their vision, and are alarmed to undertake a thing from the dread of ambush or open foes, that their guides are etarnally descryin' in the mist—AND BESIDE, POWER HAS A NATERAL TENDENCY TO CORPULENCY. As for them guides, I'd make short work of ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... other laws that we shall some day admit; and, finally, though between man and man, in other words, in our relations with our fellows, our admirable desire for equity translate itself into a justice that is always incomplete, at the mercy of every error of reason, of every ambush laid by personal interest, and of all the evil habits of a social condition that still is sub-human, it is none the less certain that an image of that invisible and incorruptible justice, which we have vainly sought in the sky or the universe, reposes in the ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck

... slow," he panted, "it may be that the convicts have got him and we may be running right into an ambush." ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... secrets, and their broken sides Bulge with the slime of life. Thus they abide, Thus fouled and desecrate, The summons of the Trumpet, and the while These Twain, their murderers, Unravined, imperturbable, unsubdued, Hang at the heels of their children—She aloft As in the shining streets, He as in ambush at ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley

... former, rich with his burden, goes exulting along, with neck erect, and tossing to-and-fro upon his throat {his} clear-toned bell:[14] his companion follows, with quiet and easy step. Suddenly some Robbers rush from ambush upon them, and amid the slaughter[15] pierce the Mule with a sword, and carry off the money; the valueless barley they neglect. While, then, the one despoiled was bewailing their mishaps: "For my part," says the other, "I am glad I was thought so little ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus

... his final commands, ordered them to be beaten till the truth should be extracted from them. They at last confessed that they had been despatched to watch the departure of the Egyptians, and admitted that the enemy was concealed in ambush behind the town. Ramses hastily called a council of war and laid the situation before his generals, not without severely reprimanding them for the bad organisation of the intelligence department. The officers excused themselves as best they could, and threw the blame on the provincial ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 5 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... thousand men. Fire and sword and torture, the destruction of tilled lands, and even of the shell-fish on the shore, did not break the spirit of the Highlanders. Many bands held out in arms, and Lochgarry was only prevented by the Prince's command from laying an ambush for Cumberland. The Campbells and the Macleods under their recreant chief, the Whig Macdonalds under Sir Alexander of Sleat, ravaged the lands of the Jacobite clansmen; but the spies of Albemarle, who now commanded in Scotland, reported the Macleans, ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang

... And you, Mr. Stein—this here is a nest of murderers. Come along. There are others about here lying in ambush. Just now we met Weiler with a gun—that vicious fellow. He was out spying, that's clear. It is a regular hunt. Come along! But, for heaven's ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various

... miles down the trail. I got here as quickly as possible. To be brief, we were attacked from ambush. The lieutenant's horse was shot from under him. We both began shooting, but he yelled to me, 'Go on, Doc. They need you at Thompson's. I'll ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders Among the Kentucky Mountaineers • Jessie Graham Flower

... the teeth. So was the great Park of the Residenz, the Hofgarten, where the guards were either bound or dead. It took her but a few moments to fly all over Munich. The narrow streets were deserted, save for the prostrate policemen bound suddenly from ambush; but in all the beautiful squares, with their pompous statues, and in all the wider streets, and out in the wide Theresien Field before the colossal figure of Bavaria, the women were gathered; relapsing into phlegmatic calm as soon as she had ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton

... cold oil-cloth or leather cushion, without the least knowledge of the harm or danger that they are liable to incur. They little dream of the prostatic troubles that lie in wait for the unwary sitter on cold places, ready to pounce upon him like the treacherous Indian lying in ambush,—troubles that carry in their train all the battalions of urethral, bladder, kidney disease and derangments, and subsequent blood disorganization, which often begin in a chilled perineum, and, in conjunction ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino

... when free speech was the life-breath of freedom— So thought once the Seldens, the Hampdens, the Lockes; But mute be our troops, when to ambush we lead 'em, "For Mum" is the word with ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... officer and nobleman stooped to skulking and prying. One alone would amply exonerate the son of Mars—devotion to Venus. And the architectural student, not fearing to pass the soldier in his excusable ambush for a sweetheart, since his route over the bridge into the new city, and not wishful to spoil the lover's sport, since he was of the age to sympathize, prepared to ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas

... is a continual exhibition of it. He lives in a state of perpetual hostility and risk. Peril and adventure are congenial to his nature, or rather seem necessary to arouse his faculties and to give an interest to his existence. Surrounded by hostile tribes whose mode of warfare is by ambush and surprisal, he is always prepared for fight, and lives with his weapons in his hands. As the ship careers in fearful singleness through the solitudes of ocean, as the bird mingles among clouds and storms, and wings its way, a mere speck, across the pathless fields of ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes

... in the balcony. 'They will come to her boudoir, no doubt,' thought I: 'let me prepare an ambush.' So putting my hand in through the open window, I drew the curtain over it, leaving only an opening through which I could take observations; then I closed the casement, all but a chink just wide enough to furnish an outlet to lovers' whispered vows: ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte

... cried Dave Fulsbee, leaping to his feet. "That's the real attack. Reade, locate that main body and turn us loose on 'em. If you don't, the fellows in the real ambush will soon make a sieve of this camp. There must be a ...
— The Young Engineers in Colorado • H. Irving Hancock

... sooner discovered this than I remonstrated with my brother, as I knew he would make every sacrifice for my repose. I begged him to give over his pursuit, and not to speak to her again. I succeeded this way to defeat the malice of my ill-fortune; but there was still behind another secret ambush, and that of a more fatal nature; for Fosseuse, who was passionately fond of the King my husband, but had hitherto granted no favours inconsistent with prudence and modesty, piqued by his jealousy of my brother, gave herself up suddenly ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... killed. I learned also that they had succeeded in capturing Wilyankuru in a very short time, that Mirambo and his son were there, that as they succeeded in effecting an entrance, Mirambo had collected his men, and after leaving the village, had formed an ambush in the grass, on each side of the road, between Wilyankuru and Zimbizo, and that as the attacking party were returning home laden with over a hundred tusks of ivory, and sixty bales of cloth, and two or three ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley

... had horses to carry them. At the last moment, indeed, Jan, whose head was still buzzing with the peach-brandy, insisted upon giving Ralph the great schimmel, that same stallion which Sihamba had ridden when she warned us of the ambush in the pass, galloping twenty miles in the hour. This shows me that Providence can turn even a man's vices to account, for afterwards ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard

... keeping his hard-mouthed troop-horse in hand, under pain of execration by his neighbors in the melee. By and by, when the newspapers came out, if he could get a look at one before it was thumbed to bits, he would learn that the enemy had appeared from ambush in overwhelming numbers, and that orders had been given to fall back, which was done slowly and in good order, the ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... of the British Troops in the wedge, began to unroll itself. Fourteen thousand Transvaalers under Joubert, who had first tested the cutting edge by sending a coal truck through the tunnel at Laing's Nek and who suspected an ambush when he found it clear, were moving south on Newcastle, while six thousand Free Staters under Martin Prinsloo were pouring through the Drakensberg passes west of Ladysmith. The Natal Government now began to feel uneasy about the safety of the colonial ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited

... to Redlands over the cliffs, entering his own grounds by a low wire fence, and thence turning inwards towards the garden. The sounds of gay voices reached him as he approached, and he speedily found himself caught in a lively ambush that consisted of Peggy, Reggie, and Noel. He naturally fled for his life, but was overtaken by the latter and held down while the two accomplices rifled his pockets. By the rules of the game all coppers ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell

... Ospak said she did not mince matters and it was hard to gainsay her, and he sprang up forthwith and dressed, as did also each of the brothers one after the other. Then they got ready to lay an ambush for Kjartan. Then Gudrun called on Bolli to bestir him with them. [Sidenote: The ambush laid for Kjartan] Bolli said it behoved him not for the sake of his kinship with Kjartan, set forth how lovingly Olaf had brought ...
— Laxdaela Saga - Translated from the Icelandic • Anonymous

... which on every side lurked in ambush to surprise the unguarded believer, assailed him with redoubled violence on the days of solemn festivals. So artfully were they framed and disposed throughout the year, that superstition always wore the appearance of pleasure, and often of virtue. Some of the most sacred festivals in the Roman ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon

... DUCHESS. I suspect some ambush; Therefore by all my love I do conjure you To take your eldest son, and fly towards Milan. Let us not venture all this poor remainder In ...
— The Duchess of Malfi • John Webster

... which Cowper) alludes,—books, that is to say, left casually open without design or consciousness, from which some careless passer-by, when throwing the most negligent of glances upon the page, has been startled by a solitary word lying, as it were, in ambush, waiting and lurking for him, and looking at him steadily as an eye searching the haunted places of his conscience. These cases are in principle identical with those of the second class, where the inquirer himself coperated, or was not entirely passive; cases such as those ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... looked at him shrewdly, quizzically, from out his ambush of whiskers. A slow grin broke over ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge

... appearances everything was as still as the grave. Presently he with the pistols, followed by the rest flourishing their bodkins, entered the wood and were soon lost to view. They did not stay long; probably anticipating some inhospitable ambush were they to stray any distance ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville

... his comforting and cheering friend. Immediately the crock of gold had been taken from its ambush in the thatch, it seemed as if the chill which had frozen up her heart had been melted by a sudden thaw. Roger Acton was no longer the selfish prodigal, but the guiltless, persecuted penitent; her care was now to soothe his griefs, not to scold him for excesses; ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... was the fair And lovely plain where gentle majesty Walked in delicious state: her temples clear Pomegranate fragments, which rejoiced to lie In dainty ambush, and peep through their cover Of ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... They must go on; they must cross that wide space which lay between them and the camp; they must reach those dark threatening fir-trees, and encounter, very likely, some desperate characters lying there in ambush, ready to spring upon the lonely traveller. All the romantic tales he had ever read, all the worst stories of bloodshed and horrors crowded upon Ambrose's mind as the two boys plodded steadily along the cart track, bending a ...
— Penelope and the Others - Story of Five Country Children • Amy Walton

... been killed one evening," said Leonard, "if it hadn't been for a friend. We were carrying dispatches, and fell into an ambush. I owe it to Winkles that I'm here to-day. He fought like a demon. I ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil

... army, and taking Igor with him, he floated down the Dnieper with a few boats, in which a number of armed men were hidden, and at length landed near the ancient city of Kief, which stood on high ground near the river. Placing his warriors in ambush, he sent a messenger to Askhold and Dir, with the statement that a party of Varangian merchants, whom the prince of Novgorod had sent to Greece, had just landed, and desired to see them as friends and men of ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... that funeral pile, where lay The Theban brothers?" He replied: "Within Ulysses there and Diomede endure Their penal tortures, thus to vengeance now Together hasting, as erewhile to wrath. These in the flame with ceaseless groans deplore The ambush of the horse, that open'd wide A portal for that goodly seed to pass, Which sow'd imperial Rome; nor less the guile Lament they, whence of her Achilles 'reft Deidamia yet in death complains. And there is rued ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante

... when the Attack is launched against a highly organised defensive position), the forward sections will be preceded by Ground Scouts, to find the most covered line of advance and the best fire positions, and to guard against ambush. These Ground Scouts advance until checked, when they remain in observation until joined by the leading sections. During the early stages of the Attack in an Encounter Battle Flank Scouts may be required until such time as the deployment of the platoon ...
— Lectures on Land Warfare; A tactical Manual for the Use of Infantry Officers • Anonymous

... which allusion has been already made. Here Ottigny halted and formed his line of march. Arlac with eight matchlockmen was sent in advance, and flanking parties thrown into the woods on either side. Ottigny told his soldiers, that, if the Indians meant to attack them, they were probably in ambush at the other end of the avenue. He was right. As Arlac's party reached the spot, the whole pack gave tongue at once. The war-whoop quavered through the startled air, and a tempest of stone-headed arrows clattered ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... investigate, and there he found all the manse children sitting on a fallen tree and screaming 'murder' at the top of their lungs. They told him they were only in fun and didn't think anyone would hear them. They were just playing Indian ambush. Warren went back to the house and found his poor ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... these excursions reached Brown's ears and increased his uneasiness. The thing that hastened the date for the Great Deed to its final place on the calendar was the fact that a traitor from ambush had written a letter to the Secretary of War, John B. Floyd, revealing the whole plot and naming John Brown of Kansas as ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon

... killing too many Myrmidons, he at last excites Achilles, who, though at first wounded, kills him at last by wounding his horse, which throws him. Memnon recovers the body of Troilus, but is himself killed. The death of Achilles in the temple of Apollo (by ambush, but, of course, with no mention of the unenchanted heel), and of Ajax and Paris in single fight, leads to the appearance of the Amazons, who beat the Greeks, till Penthesilea is killed by Neoptolemus. Antenor, AEneas, and others urge peace, and on failing to prevail with Priam, ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury

... superstitious fear. The only real danger one could see that might come from their quarter would be from allowing them to surround one within bow-shot, or to anchor within range where they might lie in ambush. As for their coming on deck at night, even had I not put tacks about, I could have cleared them off by shots from the cabin and hold. I always kept a quantity of ammunition within reach in the hold and in the cabin and in the forepeak, so that retreating to any of these places I could "hold ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum

... information was still very importunate, when Walter, having made his way up the little staircase through an artificial fog occasioned by the washing, which covered the banisters with a clammy perspiration, entered Captain Cuttle's room, and found that gentleman in ambush behind the door. ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... of the Anti-Gambling League, Murphy came home with three pink antimacassars, a discourse by JEREMY TAYLOR and two months' pay out of the pocket of McDougal, the organist, who seems to play cards by ear. But Nemesis was lying in ambush for Murphy. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 21st, 1920 • Various

... dearest Danneved, Give o’er, I beg, thy purpose straight; So many of thy enemies Before the town in ambush wait.” ...
— Alf the Freebooter - Little Danneved and Swayne Trost and other Ballads • Thomas J. Wise

... loop. At the narrow end or knot there is an old native pah, with the river flowing on either side of it. Inside the loop at the broad end is a thick scrub, and here 100 Maories from the Paterangi pah had formed an ambush. ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston

... column that, the night before, had been driven from Adhuntas, now in ignorance of peace, occupied both sides of the valley through which ran the road to Mayaguez, and in ambush by the road itself had placed an outpost of two men. One was a sharp-shooter of the picked corps of the Guardia Civile, and one a sergeant of the regiment that lay hidden in the heights. If the Americans advanced toward Mayaguez, these men were to wait until the head of the column drew abreast ...
— Once Upon A Time • Richard Harding Davis

... the pearl of our New England year. Still a surprisal, though expected long, Her coming startles. Long she lies in wait, Makes many a feint, peeps forth, draws coyly back, Then, from some southern ambush in the sky, With one great gush of blossom storms ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell

... off, and will take but a few minutes to reach it. Even if he succeed in eluding the vigilance of the ambushed villains, will it be possible for him to get to the pier, communicate with the boat's crew, and bring them back, before the officers reach the place of ambush? ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid

... Caesar followed close on their heels up to the edge of the forest; then suddenly the pursued turned right about face, three or four hundred archers came out of the wood to help them, and Caesar's men, seeing that they had fallen into an ambush, took to their heels like cowards, ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... self-control to strangle the cry of her offended modesty ere it reached her lips, at the moment when, turning her head, she beheld the burning eyes of Gyges flaming through the darkness. She must have possessed the courage of the warrior in ambush, who, wounded by a random dart, utters no syllable of pain through fear of betraying himself behind his shelter of foliage or river-reeds, and in silence permits his blood to stripe his flesh with long red lines. Had she not withheld ...
— King Candaules • Theophile Gautier

... a zealous temperance worker, and had met with considerable success in this work, which lay so near his heart. One dark night, alone and unarmed, he was crossing a bridge beyond which lay a clump of bushes. When he reached these bushes he was confronted by six men with weapons who lay in ambush waiting for him. They sprang out and shot him, and, not content with that, bruised and battered his features beyond recognition. And then his noble mother wrote to Miss Willard, President of the World's ...
— The Story of a Dark Plot - or Tyranny on the Frontier • A.L.O. C. and W.W. Smith

... smelt them, will test them. How else should I do In face of the evil ...(397)(?) Of the Daughter of My people? A deadly(398) shaft is their tongue 8 The words of their mouth(399) deceit; If peace any speak to his friend In his heart he lays ambush. Shall I not visit for such— 9 Rede of the Lord— Nor on a nation like this Myself ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith

... "unfortunate gentleman," as he himself calls him, made him aware before long that Chalais was compromised in an intrigue which aimed at nothing less, it was said, than to secure the person of the cardinal by means an ambush, so as to rid him at need. Chalais was arrested in his bed on the 8th of July. The Marquis la Valette, son of the Duke of Epernon and governor or Metz had been asked to give an asylum to Monsieur in case he decided upon flying from the court, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... though slow, Yet ever plotting how the Conquerour least May reap his conquest, and may least rejoyce In doing what we most in suffering feel? 340 Nor will occasion want, nor shall we need With dangerous expedition to invade Heav'n, whose high walls fear no assault or Siege, Or ambush from the Deep. What if we find Some easier enterprize? There is a place (If ancient and prophetic fame in Heav'n Err not) another World, the happy seat Of som new Race call'd Man, about this time To be created like to us, though less In power and excellence, but favour'd ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... went by first; Kendric was passing when an impulse prompted him to put out a sudden hand for the keen edged knife of obsidian. He slipped it into his belt and hid the haft with his coat. If it came to an ambush, to an attack in the dark, a revolver bullet might fly wild while the wide sweep of a knife blade would somehow find a sheath in something more palpable than ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory

... like a cat, his gray eyes shining with expectancy. His purpose was to gain a point where he could crouch in ambush behind the dam, and perhaps get a view of the lake-dwellers actually at work. He was within six or eight feet of the dam, crouching low (for the dam was not more than three feet in height), when his trained and cunning ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts

... Press wants all niggers holding federal offices in the South "armed to the teeth" for their own protection. It has an idea that the South is peopled only by "white savages" whose favorite sport is the shooting of nigger officer-holders from ambush. Like the erstwhile Artemus Ward's monkey, the editor of the Press is "a most amusin kuss." The South never gets angry at that kind of an animal. Occasionally a corrupt Republican administration appoints some ignorant Ethiopian to office who becomes insufferably ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... and fall to the road with a jar which knocked him cold, for he was a gross and heavy man and struck squarely on his head. With popped eyes she saw Jess throw up his pistol and fire once from his ambush behind the wagon, and then—the startled team having snatched the wagon from before him—saw him advance into the open toward the mill, shooting again ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... Ackert, hed been ridin' a hundred mile at a hand-gallop ter overhaul him, an' knowin' thar warn't but one outlet to Tanglefoot Cove, he expected ter capshur the Feds as they kem out agin. So he sot himself ter ambush Tolhurst, an' waited fur him up thar amongst the pines an' the laurel—an' he waited—an' waited! But Tolhurst never came! So whenst the guerilla war sure he hed escaped by ways unknownst he set out ter race him down ter the Cohutty Mountings. But Tolhurst had j'ined the main body o' the ...
— The Raid Of The Guerilla - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)

... Himself, thro' steep ascents and thorny brakes, A larger compass to the city takes. This news my scouts confirm, and I prepare To foil his cunning, and his force to dare; With chosen foot his passage to forelay, And place an ambush in the winding way. Thou, with thy Volscians, face the Tuscan horse; The brave Messapus shall thy troops inforce With those of Tibur, and the Latian band, Subjected all to thy supreme command." This said, he warns Messapus to the war, Then ev'ry chief ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil

... Boidae, including the Boas and Pythons are huge snakes confined to the hotter regions of the globe, and formidable from their vast strength and mode of attack. They lurk in ambush and dart upon their victim, which in an instant is seized and enveloped in their folds, and crushed to death or strangled. For their predatory habits they are admirably adapted; their teeth are terrible, and produce a dreadful wound; the neck is slender, ...
— Forest & Frontiers • G. A. Henty

... beach, and, not suspecting the proximity of the ambush which waited to receive him, had proceeded towards the avenue made at his first visit to the island. Removing the loose bushes, they attempted to pass through; but no sooner were they fairly involved among the young trees than Jerry ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton

... we walked towards this hunting Villa: but after toiling up a long unweeded avenue, we had no sooner opened the gate to the parks than a few score of dogs, which were lying in ambush, Set Up so prodigious a variety of magnificent barkings, springing forward at the same time, that, content with having caught a brief view of the seat, we left them to lord it over the domain they regarded as their own, and, with all due Submission, pretty hastily shut ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay

... and some roots of which the Indians make bread; and being now late, went on board ship for the night. Next day the admiral again landed with twelve men armed with muskets, and sent two men with vessels to fetch water. Some Indians lay in ambush at the watering-place, who suddenly fell upon the two Englishmen, and made them prisoners; which being perceived by the admiral and those with him, they advanced to rescue their companions, but were so sore assailed by stones and arrows, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr

... we popped him into a hack and drove right up here with him. And a pretty sweet specimen he is, I can tell you! Take off your hat and let the gentleman have another look at the brave chap who fired at him in ambush!" ...
— The Crucifixion of Philip Strong • Charles M. Sheldon

... not left their post, both that they did not wish to show themselves as yet to their assailants, and expose themselves to the "Speedy's" guns, and that they relied on Neb and Gideon Spilett, watching at the mouth of the river, and on Cyrus Harding and Herbert, in ambush among the rocks ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne

... an animal with paws as large as these prints. There were two clumps of brush. It could have holed up in either, waiting to attack any trailer—but why? It had not been wounded, nor frightened by their party, there was no reason for it to set an ambush on its ...
— Star Hunter • Andre Alice Norton

... Bosphorus, to whom he gave Some swift command? What means it all, ye saints? What means it? This the husband of my love, Upon whose breast I have lain night by night For two sweet years—my husband whom my father Loved as a son, whose every thought I knew, Or deemed I did, lurking in ambush here Upon the eve of our great festival, Scheming some bloody treachery to take Our Cherson in the toils? Oh, 'tis too much; I cannot trust my senses! ...
— Gycia - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Lewis Morris

... should take the bold line of arguing that Clodius was a traitor, and that the citizen who slew him had deserved well of his country. But he judged it better to follow another course, and to show that Clodius had been the aggressor, having deliberately laid an ambush for Milo, of whose meditated journey to Lanuvium he was of course aware. Unfortunately for his client the case broke down. Milo had evidently left Rome and the conflict had happened much earlier than was said, because the body of the murdered man had reached the ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church

... to hill, through the dark wood they hie, And warrior to warrior is calling; Behind the thick bushes in ambush they lie, The rifle is heard, and the loud war-cry, In rows the Frank minions are falling: And if the black troopers' name you'd know, 'Tis ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth

... even balance keeps But changing still, from foot to foot he shifts, And in his bosom loudly beats his heart Expecting death; and chatter all his teeth. The brave man's color changes not with fear, He knows the ambush ent'ring. ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... proved so disastrous to Captain Grey's party on its return from Gantheaume Bay; the want of vigilance at night manifested in another expedition in the murder of Lieutenant Eyre's European companion; and the want of caution, forgetfulness of the nature of barbarians, and the facilities for ambush afforded by a wilderness of trees and jungle, that have led to injuries fatal to life, as in the case of Mr. Cunningham in Sir Thomas Mitchell's expedition, and of two of his companions at another time; and in some instances, as in those of Captain Stokes and Captain Grey, that ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory

... black woodpecker. Look, in the spring, where she builds her nest in a hole in a tree, and when the time comes for her brood to fly off block up the entrance to the nest with a hard sod, and lurk in ambush behind the tree till the bird returns to feed her nestlings. When she perceives that she cannot get into her nest she will fly round the tree uttering cries of distress, and then dart off towards the sun-setting. When you see her do this, take a scarlet ...
— The Crimson Fairy Book • Various

... learned that the Indians of the Up-Country did not care to come down the St. Lawrence farther than Lake St. Peter's, where Iroquois foe lay in ambush; and the year before Champlain died a double expedition had set out from Quebec in July: one to build a fort north of Lake St. Peter's at the entrance to the river with three mouths,—in other words, to found Three Rivers; the other, under Father ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut

... Grand Master In crowded ambush lay; They rushed upon him where the reeds Were thick beside the way; They smote the valiant Aliatar, They smote the warrior dead, And broken, but not beaten, were The gallant ranks he led. Now mournfully and slowly ...
— Poems • William Cullen Bryant

... Guard the santon; mount him upon one of our chargers; he shall abide with us in our ambush." While Almamen chafed in vain at his arrest, all in the Christian camp was yet still. At length, as the sun began to lift himself above the mountains, first a murmur, and then a din, betokened warlike preparations. Several parties ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... paths as with a netting, Vain high courage, speed, or scent; Every mesh, a man in ambush Ready with ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell

... for a running fight. For now, as soon as your flight is discovered, Shadd will hit your trail. He's in with the Mormons. You know him—what you'll have to deal with. But the advantage will all be yours. You can ambush ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey

... find out who Uncle Sam is if they touch me," she threatened grandly. He seemed puzzled, but was too polite to press her for explanations. "But, he is a long way off and couldn't do much if we were suddenly attacked from ambush, could he? What would they do to me if I were taken, as you suggest?" she was more concerned than ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... rouse their mettle. Thus encouraged and stimulated, they effected an average of four miles and a half per hour, notwithstanding the snow, and reached Bolton just in time. At the lodge, Francis got out, and lay in ambush,—but only for a time. He did not think it orthodox to be present at a religious ceremony of his Protestant friends,—nor common-sense-o-dox to turn his back upon ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various

... services. They were a wild, untrustworthy race, and men who knew the country pleaded with him not to trust himself to them. But the Marquis, who had prided himself on his judgment in Little Missouri in 1883, had not changed his spots in 1896. His camel-drivers led him into an ambush near the well of El Ouatia. He carried himself like the game fighting man that he had always been, and there was a ring of dead men around him ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn

... however, and his associates, finding things favourable to their design, suddenly seized the captain, threw him overboard, hauled him into their canoe, and dragged him to the shore; where another party of the natives, lying in ambush, seized such of the crew as were absent from the ship. But how did these savages behave, when they had these different persons in their power? Did they not instantly retaliate by murdering them all? No—they ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson

... been murdered by Indians on the New Netherland border in 1643; now the same cruel fate overtook the gallant captain. The savages agreed to hold a parley and appointed a time and place for the purpose, but instead of keeping tryst they lay in ambush and slew Hutchinson with eight of his men on their way to the conference. [Sidenote: Murder ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske

... after the foretokenings we have had. The knave who elbowed me i' the graveyard, as well as the maiden yonder, warned us of some danger at Knowsley, where, I do verily suspect, the rogues are in ambush, waiting for us; but we will give them the slip, and away ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... reality be mad, since only madness could explain the past, and he will be judged accordingly. But he is very suspicious. He thanked me and grovelled horribly to me; but he would not trust either me or Doria, or think of entering the boat. He is all nerves and soon began to fear we were planning an ambush, or otherwise endangering ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts

... kettledrums, trumpets, and flutes that could be found in the city, and these instruments playing all at the same time, made a tremendous uproar. As soon as the individual who had been sent for entered the above-mentioned house, two assassins, placed in ambush, sprang out upon him, pierced him with a poignard, and cut him in pieces. After having removed his limbs, or rather the fragments of his body, they sent for another guest, who, once having entered this place of carnage, disappeared.... In consequence ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell

... exhausted in the war with Cortes, and by being plundered by the soldiers. From this place he sent Goncalo de Ocampo to St Stephano, or Istevan del Puerto, to inquire if the garrison would submit to his authority. They sent him a favourable answer; but, by means of an ambush, they made forty of his cavalry prisoners, alleging that they had come unwarrantably to usurp the government which belonged to another. Besides this misfortune, Garay lost four of his ships, by which he was greatly disheartened. While Cortes was preparing an expedition to Panuco, to resist Garay, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr

... caught by spreading a raw ox-hide, under which a man creeps, with a piece of string in his hand, while one or two other men are posted in ambush close by, to give assistance at the proper moment. When the bird flies down upon the bait, his legs are seized by the man underneath the skin, and are tied within it, as in a bag. All his flapping is then useless; he cannot do mischief with his claws, ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton

... interest as he could manage; then Nell came in, followed by Molly, with the tea. There was no longer any sign of a blush on the girl's face, but the gray eyes were still bright, and a smile—such a tender, joyous, sunny smile—lurked in ambush at the corners of her sweet lips. She did not look at him, and was quite busy with the teacups and saucers; but she listened to every word he said, as if every word ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice

... thinks toil good for us," said Moyse, "why does he disparage war? Who knows better than he what are the fatigues of a march? and the wearisomeness of an ambush is greater still. Why does he, ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau

... Glenarvan and John Mangles, the Major was right in every aspect of the case. To attempt to follow the sailor, to run in the darkness of night among the convicts in their leafy ambush was madness, and more than that—it was useless. Glenarvan's party was not so numerous that it could afford to sacrifice another member ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne

... you, I never took my eyes off the floor! they were glued to it all the while this transfer was being made. (Although when I afterward mentioned this circumstance, some lady slung the javelin into me from ambush by saying sarcastically—"Oh, yes indeed! 'glued to the floor' the way the average man's eyes are riveted to the sidewalk when he passes the Flatiron Building on a windy day!") But I was determined to make it a wholesale sacrifice, ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne

... civilization, both material and moral. Despite a minimum of race intermixture, the men of the Cumberland and Kentucky settlements became assimilated to the life of the red man; they borrowed his scalping knife and tomahawk, adopted his method of ambush and extermination in war; like him they lived in great part by the chase, dressed in furs and buckskin, and wore the noiseless moccasin. Here the mere fact of geographical location on a remote frontier, ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple

... leafless tree-tops—well up in the keen January wind; but a swifter traveler yet is the canvas-back drake, as he swings over the bar, at the fullest speed of his whistling pinions, disdaining to turn a foot from his appointed course, albeit vaguely suspecting the ambush below. The height of the "flying" varies, of course, greatly. I saw nothing brought down, to the best of my calculation, within forty-five or fifty yards, and most were much beyond that distance. At first you let several ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence

... party, transformed in an instant from boors to soldiers, then sprang upon the rest of the guard, overpowered and bound them, and took possession of the gate. A considerable force, which had been placed in ambush by Prince Maurice near the spot, now rushed forward, and in a few minutes the great fort of Zutphen was mastered by the States' forces without loss of a man. It was a neat and perfectly ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... darkness, and his knee found a chair that might have poised itself on one leg, in malicious ambush, so promptly did it go over—and with what ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance

... they were wholly unfit, and confining themselves almost entirely to the narrow valley of the Orontes. Under these circumstances we are not surprised to learn that Cassius, having first beat them back from Antioch, contrived to lead them into an ambush on the banks of the river, and severely handled their troops, even killing the general Osaces. The Parthians withdrew from the neighborhood of the Syrian capital after this defeat, which must have taken place about the end of September, and soon afterwards ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson

... along the stony banks, which are streaked with cold clear streams; wild ducks dive in the middle of the pools, and look round warily; in the coves under the overhanging cliffs herons stand out in the shade.... We stood in ambush nearly an hour, killed two brace of wood snipe, and, as we wanted to try our luck again at sunrise (stand-shooting can be done as well in the early morning), we resolved to spend the night at the nearest mill. We came out of ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev

... is a boat used by the Chinese, and in which they come from their country here. We were four of the Society who embarked in it, and God was pleased to give it so favorable a wind that by means of it we escaped from the hands of the enemy, who were in ambush, watching for an opportune moment. The father-provincial [59] took the same route in a caracoa—a boat used in this country; but that craft was knocked to pieces before reaching the place where the enemy had established ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XXII, 1625-29 • Various

... the size of the shield. In a feigned tale of Odysseus (Odyssey, XIV. 474-477), men in a wintry ambush place their shields over their shoulders, as they lie on the ground, to be a protection against snow. But any sort of shield, large or small, would protect the shoulders of men in a recumbent position. ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang

... white soldiers would respect a flag of truce, though in their own vernacular they referred to the sacred emblem only as a "fool flag," and sometimes used it, as did the Modocs five years later, to lure officers into ambush and deliberately murder them. They knew the white soldiers would take no advantage of foemen gathered for a conference or parley, and thus far the Sioux themselves had observed the custom which the Modocs basely ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King

... achievement, straight and wonderful, like the roads of the ancient Romans, barbarism torments the mind like a riddle. Yet there are the dusky barbarians!—fleeing from the harmonious tread of the ordered legions, running to hide themselves in the morass of vulgar sentiment, to ambush their nakedness in the sand-pits ...
— Style • Walter Raleigh

... who abides in Christ is more than a match for the hosts of darkness, and that, should he reveal himself openly, he would be met and resisted. Therefore he seeks to draw away the soldiers of the cross from their strong fortification, while he lies in ambush with his forces, ready to destroy all who venture upon his ground. Only in humble reliance upon God, and obedience to all His commandments, can we ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White

... stretched upon the window seat in their "study," and looking out over the town street below and the campus beyond the street, had already thought it tactful to ambush his profound amusement by turning upon his side, so that his face was toward the window and away from his companion. "What did you want to call her?" he inquired in ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington

... Cudjoe, like Schamyl, was religious as well as military head of his people; by Obeah influence he established a thorough freemasonry among both slaves and insurgents; no party could be sent forth by the government but he knew it in time to lay an ambush, or descend with fire and sword on the region left unprotected. He was thus always supplied with arms and ammunition; and as his men were perfect marksmen, never wasted a shot and never risked a battle, his forces naturally increased while those of his ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various

... or rather the Telemachiad, reaches out and connects with the Ithakeiad, which begins in the Thirteenth Book. Ulysses returns to Ithaca and steals to the hut of the swineherd Eumaeus; Telemachus comes back from Sparta, and, avoiding the ambush of the Suitors, seeks the same faithful servant. Thus father and son are brought together, and prepare themselves for their ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider

... words that fell from her blanched lips. She kept constantly repeating the same terrified gesture, as if to thrust from before her eyes some hideous, haunting vision. At last he understood, the entire abominable scene was pictured clearly to his mind: the traitorous ambush, the slaughter, the mother, her little one clinging to her skirts, watching unmoved the murdered father, whose life-blood was slowly ebbing; and it froze his marrow—the peasant and the soldier was sick at heart with anguished horror. ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola

... o'clock, he spent half the day in marching seven miles, and was more than a mile from the fording-place when the British reached the eastern shore. The delay, from whatever cause arising, cost him the opportunity of laying an ambush either at the ford or in the gullies and ravines that channelled the forest through which Braddock was now ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman

... him!—and he had nowhere else to go to escape them there was nothing for it but to be patient. In due time the victorious and unsuspecting Bailey, accompanied by four of his friends, appeared on the scene, and their approach was the immediate signal for action. With a cheer and a howl the ambush sprang upon their victims; and, with equal vehemence, these, having rapidly taken in the state of affairs, prepared to defend themselves. Poor George might as well have been sitting under Niagara. Step by step, the ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed

... but the beginning of that 'Armada' that this Don Armado—who fights with sword and pen, in ambush and in the open field—will sweep his old enemy from the ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon

... of Truth,—the large and heavenly security of man;—it was but a struggle of wit against wit, snare against snare. The state and law of warfare had started up in the lap of fraudful peace; and ambush must be met by ambush, plot ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... the fiercest of bandits. Mansing was a philosopher. He had saved himself the trouble of even offering a resistance; but he, too, was ill-treated, beaten, and tightly bound. At the beginning of the fight a shrill whistle had brought up four hundred[10] armed soldiers who had lain in ambush round us, concealed behind the innumerable sand-hills and in the depressions in the ground. They took up a position round us and covered ...
— An Explorer's Adventures in Tibet • A. Henry Savage Landor

... and so we didn't sit down, and made it a guerrilla war; only Fergus couldn't understand the difference between guerrillas and gorillas, and would thump upon himself and roar when they were in ambush.' ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge

... glanced round upon the group as if they were firing upon him from ambush, hemmed, looked ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable

... prisoner would have gained nothing, probably, but a halter on the spot. On the other hand, by accepting the part forced upon him, he was at least gaining time. It might be, too, that he was rendering an important service to the real Stackridge by thus withdrawing the soldiers from their ambush, and giving him an opportunity to reach home and learn the danger he ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge

... frightened people, destroyed their property, drunk their blood, even enticed living persons to excesses. But there are good shades: those of mothers nursing their children, of soldiers, fallen in battle, who give warning of an ambush of an enemy, of priests who reveal ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus

... toward the river. Into its icy waters the Romans waded breast-high, and when they came up on the opposite bank they were benumbed with cold. As soon as Hannibal knew that the Romans had crossed the river he attacked them fiercely with all his troops. Two thousand men whom he had placed in ambush fell upon the rear of their line. Their allies were frightened by a charge of elephants. Seeing that destruction was certain, ten thousand of the best soldiers broke through the Carthaginian line and marched away. All the rest of the army ...
— Introductory American History • Henry Eldridge Bourne and Elbert Jay Benton

... First Battalion of the 178th came down into the burning village to the north of Dinant—a saddening spectacle—to make one shiver. At the entrance to the village lay the bodies of some fifty citizens, shot for having fired upon our troops from ambush. In the course of the night many others were shot down in like manner, so that we counted more than two hundred. Women and children, holding their lamps, were compelled to assist at this horrible spectacle. We then sat down midst the corpses to eat our rice, as ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... hundred miles. The entire line of travel had to be altered in many places, in some instances to shorten the distance, and in others, to avoid as much as possible, wild places where Indians might easily ambush the riders. ...
— The Story of the Pony Express • Glenn D. Bradley

... away our rifles and brought us right to Kroger and Pat, without our even asking. Jones is mad at the way they got the rifles so easily. When we came upon them (a group of maybe ten, huddling behind a boulder in ambush), he fired, but the shots either bounced off their scales or stuck in their thick hides. Anyway, they took the rifles away and threw them into the stream, and picked us all up and took us into a hole in the cliff wall. The hole went on practically forever, ...
— The Dope on Mars • John Michael Sharkey

... the Don had been shot from ambush with a rifle, and probably from a considerable distance, but absolutely no trace of the assassin had been found. Not only the chief of police and several patrolmen, and the sheriff with a posse, but also many private ...
— The Blood of the Conquerors • Harvey Fergusson

... Barclay's right arm was broken. With consummate coolness the highwayman (now positively described as a thick-set man, with a beard) proceeded to relieve his victims of their valuables, but not until he had called, as was his wont, to his confederates in ambush to keep the passengers covered with their rifles. The outlaw inquired which of his victims was Sir Charles Lackington, and evinced rage when he learned that that gentleman was not among ...
— Second Book of Tales • Eugene Field

... dark forest, moved with a mystery which was appalling. The Pilgrims had now been for nearly two months at Plymouth, and not an Indian had they as yet caught sight of, except the twelve whom the gunner from his ambush had discerned. Toward evening, Miles Standish, who, upon the alarm, had returned to the house, leaving his tools in the woods, took another man and went to the place to get them, but they were no longer there. The ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

... hearing our loud shouts and huzzas, and seeing us come on with our axes gleaming in our hands, they turned tail and scampered off as fast as they could go. To pursue them would have been dangerous with so large a number of their tribe in the neighbourhood, and it was very probable that they had an ambush near at hand ready to cut us off. The sound of our fire-arms brought up two of our scouts, who joined us as we were returning to our camp, but the third did not make his appearance, and we had too much reason to fear ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston

... brief. The few men who were armed found that their weapons had been rendered useless, but even if their murderers had not taken that precaution their victims could have made no sort of a stand. They were taken by surprise. The horrible cries that the pirates made as they rushed from their ambush helped to dishearten the colonists, for they took those noises for the war-cries of savages, and they yielded to the panic. A very few escaped from the slaughter, and hid themselves in the woods in the centre of the island. ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... first time a dreadful thought occurred to her. What if after all there should be a battle? She had only thought of giving Perez warning, so he might fly with his men, but what if he should take advantage of it to prepare an ambush and fight? She had not thought of that. Jonathan was with the expedition. What if she should prove to be the murderer of her brother? What had she done? Sick at heart, she lay awake trembling till dawn. Then she got up and dressed, and waited about miserably, till toward eight o'clock the news of ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy

... father, lover were speeding homeward, into what? A trap? An ambush? Certainly to battle with a foe out-numbering ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman

... high priest and the chief of the Jews informed him against Paul, and besought him, (3)asking for themselves a favor against him, that he would send for him to Jerusalem, preparing an ambush to slay him on the way. (4)But Festus answered, that Paul was to be kept a prisoner at Caesarea, and that he himself should soon go thither. (5)Let them therefore, said he, who are powerful among you, go down with me, and accuse this ...
— The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. • Various



Words linked to "Ambush" :   wait, trap, coup de main, waylay, lurk, scupper, track down, surprise attack, lie in wait, ambuscade, run, hunt, still-hunt, ambusher



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